On Writing for Children and Children Writing

My monetary assistance to the United States Postal service in the form of
SASEs (self-addressed stamped envelopes) must hold some kind of record. And
if not, then my phone call to an editor at Grosset and Dunlop, who was (try and
follow this) the mother of my husband’s first girlfriend’s son’s girlfriend
surely must.

But dreams can come true. And after years (and years) of mailing out
manuscripts- short stories, adult, children’s, numerous cover letters and
queries; after years of phone calls, conferences, continuing education classes, and
critiques groups; after many, many, many rejections- my first published novel
was bought by the first editor to read it.

Why?

For me, what finally worked was when I stopped “trying to get published”
and just wrote. I wrote the story I had always wanted to tell but thought I
shouldn’t- the story of a girl growing up without a mother, believing other
girls have some secret knowledge which she will never have. It was just slightly
this side of semi-autobiographical and I had been writing it in one form or
another since I was in 6th grade.

There were several reasons I hadn’t tried as an adult, to write and
“publish” this particular tale. First, I believed that the shelves were filled
with one-hundred-too-many books of middle-grade fiction in which one or more
parents dies or is dead. Remember, first and foremost I was trying to get
published. I was trying to find a marketing void and fill it. That was a mistake.

Second, I believed that this story ( involving a mother’s suicide) was
perhaps too sad for a middle-grade audience. Besides, people close to me had
been telling me for years, to “move on” and “let it go”. The irony being I
was never able to let it go until it was written down.

And third , I think I have to add, that my earlier attempts with other
stories were just not very good. I was still learning. I was practicing. The
more I wrote, the better (hopefully)I got. Writing is a process. It wasn’t
what I gained from the short handwritten notes scribbled on the bottom of
form-rejections letters, it was really just practice.

And reading. A lot. I read young adult books, middle grade books, adult
books. Reading great books is the best education. Even reading not-so-great
books. Trying to figure out what works. What doesn’t. At what point did the
story fell apart or get boring? Or at what point I did I forget I was reading and
just believed? Listen to the significance of a single word, a beautiful
sentence, a perfect observation.

And simplicity. Find the story you want to tell and stick to it.

I also found that reading my work out loud in a critique group was
invaluable. This works even if you are alone. Read outloud to yourself. You’d be
amazed what your eye passes over but your ear picks up.

Most of all, I discovered what Anne Lamott wrote in Bird by Bird (Random
House, 1994) about Shitty First Drafts. It changed my writing life.

“...the idea of the shitty first draft. All good writers write them. This
is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.”

At the end of the day, I think most writers look what they’ve written
and say, This is just god awful. I certainly do. Anne Lamott gave me permission
to continue on from that point. Not to be discouraged. In fact, to expect it.

The hard part was over-being brave enough to get it all out. Being brave
enough and having the endurance. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot now! Revise. To
revise is divine.

But I didn’t come to these realizations easily. It actually took one
particularly awful rejection to point me in the right direction. After a full year
working and reworking a collection of short stories for an editor at Simon
and Schuster, I received in the mail (on Christmas eve) a package with all my
stories and a very nice letter of rejection. I happen to be Jewish, but
still... Christmas Eve?

“...blah, blah...not as confident that we would be the right home for the
book....blah, blah, blah.”

I cried so hard and for so long that my family thought I had received
news of a death. It felt like it.

However, there was something this editor had said to me, which later gave
me the courage to pick myself up off the floor and write again, dream again.
It was during one of our early and still positive phone conversations.

It went more or less like this:

Her: While we are talking, do you have any other ideas or projects?

Me: Yeah, sure I do.

Her: What are they?

Me (pausing): Well, I’ve always had this idea to write a novel about a
little girl whose mother dies and she grows up thinking that all other little
girls know something about becoming a woman that she doesn’t. . .but...

Her: But what?...

Me: Well, there are a million stories like that..where the mother dies or
is dead. It’s been done.

Her: Maybe..but only you can tell your story.

It took about a month after that Christmas Eve for the pain to subside
enough for me to begin writing again. This time however, I wrote in secret. I
was embarrassed by my failures. I would rush home from teaching nursery school
and write; before my kids got off the school bus, before my husband came home
from work. Then I would shut down my computer screen and hide my pages and
pages of revisions.

And, this time (forgive the cliche) I wrote from the heart. This decision
was perhaps nothing less than sheer desperation. I had nothing left to lose,
so I risked heart and all. I wrote using the skills I had learned and
practiced as an adult but with the vulnerability of... of a 6th grader. And I did
it without thinking of who -if anyone- would publish it. I wrote the story I
had always wanted to tell. I wrote it for myself and that is the book that was
published.

Now, that is not to say I wrote in a vacuum. I do not believe any writer
writes completely for themselves. Even the reclusive Emily Dickinson had her
friends and fellow writers as her audience. After all, writing is by
definition a form of communication. The purpose of this communication is to be read,
to be heard. If you think you have something to say, ultimately you want
someone to listen.

That, I believe, is writing.

It is communicating in such a way, in a form, in a manner, in a style,
within a structure so you can be best understood. As I wrote, I kept in mind an
imaginary audience, except it was my imaginary audience. It was not a spot on
the shelf at Barnes and Noble or an unfilled gap in the nationwide 6th grade
curriculum. However, I did know that in order to be “heard” I had to tell a
story. A good story.

Now here comes the tricky part. Readability? Entertainment?

Dare I even use the word-PLOT ?

I am very wary of that word, particularly in the hands of teachers. It is
potentially dangerous. Plot can imply outline, outlines can be confining. It
is the opposite of process.

All plot really implies is causality. Janet Burroway in Writing Fiction
(Longman Publishing, 2003) writes, “A plot is a series of events deliberately
arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic and emotional significance.
A story gives us only ‘what happened next’ whereas plot’s concern is ‘what,
how and why’ with sentences ordered to highlight the working of cause and
effect.”

This is a difficult concept for anyone, especially children. In many
cases, it happens naturally. A more important lesson may be “where does plot
begin”? Deciding where in a story to begin the action. Sometimes beginning in the
middle or even the end is most interesting. Often times, going back and
finding the place in your story or essay or term paper, where you finally figured
out what you were writing about is the best thing you can do.
Writing really is a process.

When I write, I keep an eye on where I am going. I think about climax
and resolution. I do. I think about the number of characters I feel confident
I can juggle. I think about plot but I don’t plot. Instead, I stumble ahead,
maneuvering in an unfamiliar room without the lights on. Whenever I come to a
point where I feel my story has blown completely off course or becomes flat or
false or totally ridiculous, I go back to the last moment it felt right. I
throw everything else away (or I save it in another computer file for a future
story) and I stumble forward again. (Revising is maneuvering in the same
room, but with the lights on!)

But mostly when I am writing, I enjoy what I am doing. I enjoy the
struggle. The frustration. The back and wrist aches. I thrive on the total
immersion. I love the wonderfully frightening possibility that anything can happen and
it is in my control.

And then after months of hard work, I print out my shitty first draft.

When I visit a school or teach my creative writing class, I don’t ask if
anyone “wants to be a writer”. Instead, I ask if anyone “loves to write.”
“Likes to write.” Doesn’t that have to come first? I enjoy teaching writing to
children. Above all, I want it to be fun. I want my class to be freeing.
Something they can fly with, dream with, enjoy. I do this with exercises, not
finished pieces. I put little hints on the board every class like:

Show don’t tell.

Said is not dead.

Avoid cliches whenever possible.

Details not adjectives.

Take a risk.

And we play games to illustrate all these points. I bring in examples
from literature and read them out loud. We talk about how much the author has
shown us about the character in this one short passage. We talk about how much
the reader knows about setting and tone and point of view from just this one
sentence. We do an exercise together as a class and then as individuals. At the
end of class the students share out loud and they have the opportunity see a
reaction to what they have written. I love to see the look on a student’s
face when they realize: This is something I am good at. More than that, they
are discovering for the first time that words can really move people, words can
make someone laugh or hold their breath or cry. Words are powerful.
I had a mother call me at home a while ago. She was very concerned
because her daughter-whom she told me was a very talented writer- had taken to
copying books into her journal, word for word. Just copying stories she liked for
hours on end. The mother was worried that her daughter was confusing the line
between what was her writing and what was someone else's.

Look, I am no expert.

In fact, I probably have no business writing this essay but I didn’t
think there was anything wrong with copying stories, word for word, page after
page, just being lost in the language. Because sometimes the look of a word, the
sound, even the feel of it magically rolling off the tip of a pencil onto a
white sheet of paper is enough to satisfy. Maybe to inspire.

Being a child is about being lost in everything. Not being accountable. Not yet. Not having to produce anything. Not yet. It’s about making mistakes. Taking chances. Experimenting.

Like writing, it is a process.

1. Just Hanukkah

2. Finding Home

3. On Writing for Children
and Children Writing

4. Art, Romance, Life, Howard Munce and Me